The NY Times Editorial Page Fails Logic

Avoiding a Japanese Decade

"The green shoots are barely out of the ground and Republicans and conservative Democrats in Congress are already demanding that the administration “do something” to cut the budget gap. We worry that the political drumbeat may be too hard to resist. In 1997, after three years of tepid growth, the Japanese government stopped its stimulus: it raised a consumption tax, ended a temporary income tax cut, increased social security premiums and nipped recovery in the bud."

What an inane counterfactual. The idea that it is the government's job to spend us out of a recession is conveniently popular with the government that gets to spend all of that money to increase their own influence, power, and status. We've been overstimulating the economy for 10 years, using deficit spending to pay for all sorts of nonsense like full price prescription drugs and wars against countries that couldn't attack us. Adding more stimulus is so unbelievably risky, it risks the very status of our currency and out ability to borrow money.

Of course, we have genius bankers making these decisions, guys that are so full of ego they think they can completely orchestrate the economy by moving the fed funds rate.

Stimulus doesn't work- we tried it from 2001-2009, and look what we got. On the other hand, government fiscal discipline will allow more money to go into the job creating sectors of the economy, not make work to siphon tax dollars.

You keep it all in.

There are those things that you just can't tell, without committing yourself to a certain direction forever. People keep their thinking on subjects like politics and religion quiet, because people feel so strongly about those things that you might make an enemy of someone whom you enjoy a mutually beneficial relationship.  But what if you feel that people shouldn't care so strongly about anything that they it would prevent them from getting along with someone that has opposing views? You keep it all in.

Public Option

We already have a public option. It's called Medicaid. Why do we need another government program?  To expand participation, simply index the income limit to the local cost of living.

Some kind of end point

Failure to make the hard choices. Flat world. Ignorance.

Have to switch gears.

Another chance for me to be wrong...

More on the inheritance of education ... I think there is still room for parental difference making...but it is hard to tell from the limited data we have that doesn't control for the adoption age.  In any case, Mankiw's point is pretty clear from the graph- genes matter.

Mankiw misses one?

"It would be interesting to see the above graph reproduced for adopted children only. I bet that the curve would be a lot flatter."

I think so too, but maybe not too much flatter. A lot of being a good teacher for your kids works, even if you have a couple of little troublemakers. You can still figure out how to teach them- if you're smart enough.

Is it time to drop your 529 plan? Yes.

Fidelity asks if it's time to change your 529-plan portfolio. A 529 plan is the most over-managed money option out there. You are literally paying fees on fees. How about this- let me invest in something other than mutual funds. Until you do that, it is clear that this is just another free benefit for ... Fidelity.

Take an artificial sweetener pill

I just read this WSJ article that said: "Obese people spent 42% more than people of normal weight on medical costs in 2006, a difference of $1,429, the study found. Prescription drugs accounted for much of the increase." I therefore applaud and encourage everyone's efforts to keep their weight down. Maybe we need more exercise for people...

When people compare health care between countries, the costs per American always seem high. Why is that? Here are some behavioral observations, in addition to the usually cited factors and our general chubbiness.

1) Americans demand more expensive, patented, brand name medicines. Many studies have shown that placebos are equally effective, for mental disorders in particular. Generics often get the job done for a fraction of the cost- often for less than the co-pay offered by my insurance.

2) Americans go to the doctor more. We visit the doctor more frequently than people in other countries, with the exception of Japan. A lot of this is because doctors control access to medicines we want (see #1). Moving more medicine to non-prescription status (like allergy medication) and making more medicine available via a visit to a nurse practitioner would save on the number of visits.

3) Third party payers- we buy medical services with no concern for their cost, because we don't directly pay for them. People spend more time trying to save 50c in the grocery store than they do saving $200 on an MRI, which should be a commodity service. We need a market where you get some benefit by choosing a less expensive treatment. This will incentivize providers to actually compete on price, like they do for LASIK and cosmetic surgery.

Music?

Long time no post, but this track just was such a classlessic, it required action!!

Go Ke$ha.

Thanks...
http://www.muumuse.com/2009/07/keha-just-threw-up-in-my-closetand-im.html

Time

Read an annoying Scott Adams piece this morning, where he makes a simple metaphysical linguistic error.

"Given that science can't find evidence for either God or time, it takes a leap of faith to assume either one exists. Therefore, anything in our daily life that depends on either God or time is built on a foundation of faith and not science."

The simple error is three separate applications of the word "exists". It is obvious that the normal meaning is to say whether something physically exists or not. My computer exists. My yacht does not exist. Time is obviously different from a physical thing. Time is not something that exists in the same way. "Time" is a term that describes an aspect of the way the physical things that do exist change. Therefore, no leap of faith exists in believing in time, because no one ever said time "exists" in the same way as my computer.

Adams furthers the equivocation by suggesting that belief in gods is of a similar nature. However, most people suggest that gods exist in some way that is different than describing a property of the arrangement of physical things. Neither term applies, so there must be some third meaning of exists, if it were to be true.

So what? A Wittgenstein-style diagnosis of equivocal statements, which attempt to fuzzy the use of terms is quite productive in exposing most philosophical blatherings as pure nonsense.